Men's Rights Activists respond to the Elliot Rodger murders with a hearty "Nothing to see here! Move along!"

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If anyone was hoping – against their better judgement – that Men’s Rights activists would be inspired by the tragedy in Isla Vista to reconsider any of their beliefs, or even to reflect for a moment on the many striking similarities between passages in Elliot Rodger’s book-length manifesto and comments posted every day by MRAs and others in the manosphere, well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you should not keep that hope alive.

It’s not that they’re not talking about the tragedy. A look through the top 100 posts in the Men’s Rights subreddit, the largest Men’s Rights forum online, reveals that roughly a third of them, including the top stickied post, relate in some way to Elliot Rodger’s rampage and the discussions that have come up online and in the media in its aftermath.

But the message of virtually all of these posts is: “Nothing to see here! Move along!” There are numerous posts expressing outrage that anyone would see any connection between Rodger’s toxic misogyny to the Men’s Rights movement; there are others mocking and attacking the #YesAllWomen hashtag; there’s even one suggesting that Rodger, who wrote about how he longed to watch all the women of the world starve to death in concentration camps, wasn’t actually a misogynist at all.

Sorry to break it to you, fella, but that’s not how defamation suits work. If it were, all of us who call ourselves feminists would be collecting millions of dollars from the Men’s Rights subreddit for all the patently untrue things you guys say about us every day of every week.

Still others make sure that everyone knows that Rodger hated men too – not that this has actually gone unnoticed in the media or in discussions of the tragedy.

And then there’s this fellow, who seems to think that Rodger only hated men, and that his big problem with women was that he loved them too much:

There are, it’s true, two posts that raise the issue of what might be done to prevent tragedies like this from happening in the future. One of them takes on the issue of “virgin shaming.” (Sure, I’m against that, and against slut shaming too. Odd that roughly 100% of the virgin shaming I’ve ever heard in my life has come from MRAs and other non-fans of this blog, even though — sorry to break it to you fellows — I’ve not been a virgin since the early Reagan administration.)

Meanwhile, the other “positive” suggestion — the stickied top post, submitted by one of the forum’s moderators — is pretty transparently intended as a PR move – and an excuse to bash feminists.

Yep, “creep shaming.” That’s the problem! Way to cut through all the bullshit and get to the heart of the matter! The problem isn’t that some men — well, a lot of men — think and act in predatory and entitled ways towards women. The problem is that sometimes when they do, women call them “creeps.”

The problem isn’t that the world’s creepiest and most entitled man just killed 6 innocent people, the problem is “creep shaming.”

After killing his roommates and a friend of theirs, Rodger attempted to get inside a sorority so he could massacre the women inside it. But he couldn’t get anyone to let him in. Probably because, well, whoever was nearest the door thought he looked a bit, well, creepy.

“Creep-shaming” isn’t some insidious form of discrimination against awkward men. It’s a defense mechanism that women develop to protect them against predatory men. And in the case of the Isla Vista murders, I’m guessing that the willingness of women to go with their gut sense that Rodger was a creep literally saved lives.

But the mods of the Men’s Rights subreddit would rather moan about “creep shaming.” They would prefer that women lower their defenses against men like Elliot Rodger — because it hurts their feelings to sometimes get called a “creep.”

Guys, this is why people think Elliot Rodger was an MRA.

EDIT: I added more to the conclusion because I had more to say about creep shaming.

Your right,
There are so many factor that make misogyny so much harder to not see or hear.one factor I think that makes it so is that unlike say racism where a bigot can say “I don’t like (insert ethnic group) but another ethnic group is okay.” Misogyny can not be deflected if you hate woman, you hate woman. so misogynist tend to be quite in a situation where they can be identified. Also unlike say KKK members who seem to enjoy parading around, which causes the public at large to see them and say “yeah this guys are evil”. Misogynist (other then places like AVFM) really don’t get together in large enough numbers for people to have the same reaction to them as other hate groups.

I am 38 years old and I never had sex. Just because a guy no longer wants to deal with women doesn’t make him gay.

Wut?

I never said you were. My point was that everyone can’t go avoiding the gender they’re attracted to do just because they’ve been hurt by members of that gender. It’s physically not possible. What about bisexual people who have been rejected by both men and women? Do they have to go live in a cabin alone in the wilderness somewhere?

Davis, if you haven’t taken the hint and fucked off, do so now.
You’re a misogynist and an ass and you’re not even good at it. You’re just annoying.
Everyone else is right. You can’t just search private property without a warrant or even probable cause, and you can’t commit someone who isn’t, for example, openly suicidal or homicidal. So, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Also, you assume all women act as a hivemind or something, which is ridiculous. Women don’t hate socially awkward men. Most women do, however, hate assholes. Which you are. Maybe you could try to improve yourself or actually go your own way, because no one feels like dealing with you as you are. And no one has said you’re gay, Seriously, do you listen to yourself? I’m assuming no, because anyone with an ounce of self awareness would be too ashamed to keep this up.
Go away.

BTW, you ever gonna answer my question? Do you really think black women are worse than the KKK? Is that what you were trying to say? Do you really think that black women have done more damage than the KKK? Do you know how sexist and racist that is?

Davis, you avoid women at the supermarket, where they’re just going to bag your goddamn groceries, and then actively seek them out and talk to them online. Methinks you may not be acting as logically as you think you are.

So, why are you still here? It would make sense if you fled the web site, instead of staying here accussing us of making you do things in your life — like associate with women. You want to be here and crow about shit. That’s your choice, isn’t it?
And no, we’re not like the MRA. If we were, we’d be on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s radar — like the MRA.

BTW, you ever gonna answer my question? Do you really think black women are worse than the KKK? Is that what you were trying to say? Do you really think that black women have done more damage than the KKK? Do you know how sexist and racist that is?

While your at it, also prove that our concern for the victims is fake.

Your problem is that you want to bash men and women who do not submit to feminism. You’re too scared to take your complaints directly to these MRA shit stains. You’re just as pathetic as the MRA bums.

Feminism isn’t some sort of regime, dude, it’s people saying that women are people and deserve equal rights as people. By saying that you avoid women simply by virtue of being women, you’re saying that women can’t act as individuals and people in their own right. Even non feminist women. So, really, you’re like an MRA. Or a MGTOW, especially in the way that you don’t actually go anywhere.

And if I wanted to seep myself in misogynistic stupidity, I would go and engage them on their sites, but I would do better talking to my friend’s three month old baby. He’s probably cuter, and he’s certainly more fun.

…yeah, I’m only mad because morons like you derail a lot of the conversation to listen to themselves talk. You can say whatever you want until you get banned, but I’ve had more entertaining and in depth conversations with my dog. Has anyone’s pet done something funny today? My dog got scared by his own fart.

Skimmed the AVFM re the petition. Turns out, if it did reach the White House, the movement wouldn’t meet the legal definition of the word “terrorist” and they would have a giant, public laugh- which would more positive awareness to their cause.

I don’t think any of the MRA groups that exist online could organize their way out of a wet paper bag, so terrorist is a bit of a stretch.

Most misogynists are like the vast majority of racists. Most misogynists aren’t posting all over AVFM, and most racists aren’t in the Klan. I want to attack the fundamental misogyny that exists throughout our entire culture and that allows extreme cases like Rodgers to go virtually unremarked upon until the guns come out, and that allows mainstream media to ignore his misogyny and allows other idiots to deny it, claim it was all “mental illness” and “access to guns”, and Not All Men anyway, wah. I don’t want to get sidetracked by terms like “terrorist” on top of all that. Having a scheme to attack a sorority house, even in explicit detail, doesn’t qualify as a terrorist plot. Getting fed by hateful MRA bastards in websites all over the internet isn’t being recruited into a terrorist group. Most people who are called terrorists barely meet that qualification, or don’t meet it at all, and I’m tired of hearing it bandied about by anyone. It has become meaningless.

Should MRAs maybe be considered hate groups and maybe be watched by law enforcement? I don’t know. I’m too big a fan of privacy to want to advocate for that. I also don’t think new gun laws will fix this problem, and in this instance this guy was getting state of the art help for “mental” issues and it still didn’t help, so I don’t know that advocating for mental health access is relevant to this situation. (It’s totally relevant to, you know, mental health, but that should be advocated for without someone having to shoot a bunch of people.)

And no, I don’t want the police to be able to sweep in to anyone’s house and just, what, cart them off willy nilly to a lunatic asylum? Is that what you’re claiming should happen, Davis? Because if so, we did that in this country once upon a time, and it was a death dealing nightmare to hundreds of thousands of people. There’s a reason we don’t have good mental health policy in America– when the law allowed for people to be committed against their will for just about anything, from being too Native or too black or too gay or too female or too whatever, IT WAS ABUSED, so badly, so horrifyingly, that we have never been able to figure out how to fix it.

I don’t think there’s any solution to any of these specific incidents. I think in a non-misogynistic society, this specific crime might not have happened, maybe, or if it was brewing someone would have spotted it sooner. Unfortunately this guy was just the tip of a massive internet iceberg full of men who hate women and, frankly, aren’t bothered at all that we might end up dead. If we had a non-misogynist society, at least he would have stood out.

He’s a REAL BADASS. It’s obvious his social awkwardness stopped the ladiez, and not you know, his toxic personality.

Of course not! It’s just that the evil wimminz are shallow and only like bad boys.

I had to type this comment twice because of cat anger consequences. Darrow wants a snack and I’m failing in my duties and decided to type instead. He thumped his large tail down on the keyboard and hit F5 so the page refreshed and I lost my comment.

For those following along at home, the reason why it’s not meaningful to say that women/UCSB/the authorities etc are at fault because they could have prevented the killings is that, even assuming that’s true, none of them were what made him want to go on the rampage in the first place (no, not even women, since lots of men get rejected by women and don’t go on murderous rampages).

Whereas the MRM or, more broadly, masculinity culture in general are both plausible sources that could have put the idea into his head in the first place, and therefore can more meaningfully be considered possible causes.

Davis, keep refeshing the browser. You see, I deal with grief and anger by either finding more volunteer work, or being excessively silly.

Since my pager is blessedly silent, meaning no one needs my help, mocking you is quite useful, because trying to be as ridiculous as your rich construction worker gun dealer who sells only to men, is a PoC yet doesn’t mind the KKK, and avoids checkout lines with lady workers, lady dentists, and lady charities like the plague self is making me go to quite silly extremes.

I know people directly hurt. Right now, I’ve done what I can for them. Bawling my eyes out and hugging pillows only helps for so long.

You, I’m just starting with. Thanks for the silly.

Sorry, my Delorean’s alarm is going off again. I thought I told that kid no more time traveling! Where’d I put that flux capacitor?

Yeah. My cat does this thing where she pretends something is chasing her. She stops abruptly after running around, she lowers her head and her eyes dart, then she takes off like a bat outta hell. Then she does it all over again.

Oh look, Dood troll couldn’t handle the Supernatural gossip on the other thread, lol. Probably because it *wasn’t all about him*.

Well, if we’re waiting for the Tardis to refuel (I’m assuming more wine), I’ll see if I can find enough Dark Matter (I’m not sure what’s in Vex, so Dark Matter’s a good guess, right?) for a quick trip, since some guy with a hammer broke my main ride.

My cat loves chia – I mix it into my yogurt every day, and she likes to lick the bowl. Anyway, ever since I started adding it, she’s gotten incredibly cuddly. It freaks my family out, since she’s normally super paranoid and stares at everyone like they’re weird strangers who she’s never seen before.

We Hunted the Mammoth tracks and mocks the white male rage underlying the rise of Trump and Trumpism. This blog is NOT a safe space; given the subject matter -- misogyny and hate -- there's really no way it could be.